Doctors that need to admit a patient to an inpatient physician currently face a complicated process of trying to figure out which physician to call. They have to determine which physician group to admit the patient to, then check that group's call schedule and page the admitting doctor. If the emergency room doctor is lucky enough to have called the proper pager number, the admitting doctor typically returns the page in 10-30 minutes. By this time, the emergency room doctor has seen several other patients and now has to answer the phone and refocus on the patient that they need to admit to the hospital. Often, the admitting physician isn't even the physician who ends up admitting the patient to the hospital due to the admitting group's logistical concerns. In this case, the admitting physician will check the patient out to one of their partners. Information is inevitably lost during this process as it goes from one physician's memory to another physician's memory.
The present invention recognizes the limitations of “pager tag” for both the referring physician (e.g., emergency room doctor) and admitting physician. The present invention uses programmed computer and telephony technology to streamline the process for all users. Once the referring physician recognizes that the patient needs to be admitted to a practice that utilizes this invention, they call a predetermined phone number, i.e., a “voice check-in” number, (doctors also refer to this process as a “check-out” procedure), enter relevant patient identification data, e.g., the patient's medical record number, then leave a voice recording detailing pertinent medical information regarding the patient. By calling the predetermined voice check-in number, the referring physician does not have to search for and identify the admitting physician or his or her unique phone or pager number. The phone system of the present invention receives and stores the patient identification data and recording into a computer database admission queue that can be accessed by the admitting and/or rounding physicians. The invention also checks an admitting physician call database so it can determine which physician is currently designated as the group's admitting physician, then it calls their cell phone and plays the recorded information so that the admitting physician can provide admitting orders and determine when the patient needs to be seen. The admitting physician may also assign the patient to another rounding physician in his or her practice group. In one embodiment, the recording is played at a faster rate so that the physician can listen to the recording quicker. Because the system of the present invention automatically identifies and calls the appropriate admitting doctor with the recorded check-in message, the referring doctor does not have to manually identify and page the admitting doctor. The referring doctor also does not have to wait to receive a call from the admitting physician. The referring doctor can rest assured that once the voice check-in message is left, that the system will take care of automatically getting the message to the appropriate admitting physician.
In another embodiment, the invention is comprised of a “family check-in” system where the doctor can leave daily check-ins through an electronic medical record and have family members retrieve the check-ins via a PIN that is assigned to the patient during the admission process. This will eliminate the need for doctors and family members to play phone tag.
Obvious modifications to the present invention are expected to fall within the scope of the claims of the present invention. The above stated and other advantages of the present invention will be better understood from the following description of the drawings and detailed description of the preferred embodiment(s).